I am a crazy, uncivil hippie
You know what crazy is? Crazy is majority rules. Take germs, for example.... In the eighteenth century, no such thing, nada, nothing. No one ever imagined such a thing. No sane person, anyway. Ah! Ah! Along comes this doctor, uh, uh, uh, Semmelweis, Semmelweis. Semmelweis comes along. He's trying to convince people, well, other doctors mainly, that's there's these teeny tiny invisible bad things called germs that get into your body and make you sick. Ah? He's trying to get doctors to wash their hands. What is this guy? Crazy? Teeny, tiny, invisible? What do you call it? Uh-uh, germs? Huh? What? Now, cut to the 20th century. Last week, as a matter of fact, before I got dragged into this hellhole. I go in to order a burger in this fast food joint, and the guy drops it on the floor. Jim, he picks it up, he wipes it off, he hands it to me like it's all OK. "What about the germs?" I say. He says, "I don't believe in germs. Germs is just a plot they made up so they can sell you disinfectants and soaps." Now he's crazy, right? See? Ah! Ah! There's no right, there's no wrong, there's only popular opinion.My e-buddy Chicago Dyke at Correntewire has started a fascinating discussion with her real-world friend Olivier Knox, a White House correspondent who's agreed to answer questions about how they make that undercooked sausage called "modern journalism."
— 12 Monkeys
Try as I might, I cannot muster much decorum on this topic. Comments I wrote to this nice fellow include the following:
There are many theories on why the MSM has all-but-completely let the country down on the most important issues of the day. But the simple fact is, it has, and the ink-stained wretches have gallons of blood on their hands.What a rude, crazy hippie I must be to talk that way!
Gosh, that’s uncivil to say. But it’s my country, and I’ll cry for it if I want to.
I've had recent conversations with friends and colleagues who, for example, have a nice word to say about John McCain. I'm uncivil enough to bring up a few of the dozens of disreputable, hypocritical things he's done and said in just the last few months.
It's kind of awkward, really. Knowing that the media's meme about the moderate maverick is a merely a myth. It would be much more polite, and probably much "saner" not to know and not to care. Then I could just smile and say, "he's a good man."
Why can't I be comfortably numb about Bush and Cheney, and not notice that they're evil, corrupt, and incompetent? Why can't I be civil and sane like Britney Spears?
Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision he makes and should just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens.Even when I gain the peace of accepting George and Dick for who they are, there's something that makes me crazier still: when people who should know better — say, the media and about half our voters — eat up their bullshit and thank them for the fudge.
Somehow I find living in a "what's wrong with this picture?" a little upsetting. Crazy, huh?
Given the state of politics in this country, perhaps staying civil about it should be the new crazy.
Maybe it's crazy not to raise a fuss when...
- ...in the face of a global climate crisis and deadly politics in the oil-rich Middle East, we have governance by the petroleum executives and for the petroleum executives
- ...America's fundamental freedoms — including privacy, habeas corpus, and protection against being tortured — are dismantled in the name of freedom
- ...a record surplus is turned to a record deficit
- ...two trillion of those dollars are going to a war that's not only unnecessary but it's thoroughly counterproductive and unwinnable
- ...superstition has science on the run
- ...the only agenda the administration is sincerely committed to is shifting money and power to the richest and most powerful
- ...we've gone from a president who lied about having an affair to one that seems incapable of telling the truth about anything
As far as I know, only one person in the news media has ever asked the most obvious and important question of the day: Why the fuck are we in Iraq? Is it just me, or is there something wrong with that picture?
Labels: MSM
posted by Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy at 9:57 AM
7 Comments:
Interesting view! I find that people are created of a complex set of emotions, the only difference between people is how some choose to deal with it. My mother worked in a terminal unit at the hospital. When People sign in they write down what religion they are or not. She said it is pretty amazing about the atheist
as they lay on there death bed there last words are OH God help me. Whether the bible is a book of morales is to be seen, but the truth is no one is a hundred percent sure what is in the universe besides earth and Its inhabitants. I was once told that religion was for the weak. The fact of it is that all people have strengths and weakness and at times we grasp to the unknown for answers.
I read your blog and your sister blog, there is always room for varied opinion. So I found yours to be quite interesting. I find people who are to extreme rights and lefts of society are what create most problems in life. An open mind can and give the balance that is needed to bring peace to a world of turmoil.
CWOV,
Thanks for writing. I often hear things like "people who are to extreme rights and lefts of society are what create most problems in life," but it rings off-key in early 21st century America.
That "crazy left" is exemplified by progressive millionaires like Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, a host of bloggers that routinely get the news right more often than paid journalists do, and ordinary citizens like Cindy Sheehan who don't want their children killed in a mismanaged war founded on lies. What are the terrible foibles that they and other liberals are unleashing on our society today?
The crazy right has made a deal with the devil to start random wars, rape the treasury, gut environmental registration, and so on and so forth.
This smacks of what we call around here "equivalation." It's a plausible-sounding symmetry, but to what extent is it true?
As a crazy, uncivil hippy, I hear you, man! I am in the position of saying something that is uncontroversial -- like McCain is a lying hypocrite -- and having people look at me like I've grown a second head. I understand when I say stuff like "we need to think about a post-democratic state, like consensualism" that people will look at me weird. No one knows what consensualism is, right? But when I say stuff like, "Bush is amongst the worst Presidents in American history" people say, "Uh-uh!" even tho' the list of disasters, just utter disasters, and scandals, of his administration are enough to make a person wish for Ulysses Grant in office!
Sometimes I, too, feel like I'm shouting into the void -- but there are people that are listening and learning!
Oops, that should have been "environmental regulations."
But speaking of "environmental registration," be sure to click the link on a recent post where you can fill out an e-card for Al Gore!
Chris,
Always great to hear from other people who are going crazy looking for sanity in Bush's America.
Man, I hope we live to see the day when our whole country looks back on this era the way everyone who isn't named Ann Coulter looks at the McCarthy era -- with shame and disbelief.
Welcome to the Atheist Blogroll
One of the pieces I have seen on a web page. And I have seen a lot.
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